Tension Arises
by G. Sun
Summary: While Mia wonders about her fate, her patience grows thin every passing second she's with Don. He can only tolerate her for so long-how long until they both snap? A mysterious man with skin as dark as the sky introduces himself to Mia but why does she know him? Read after STUCK IN CAPTIVITY
1. Chapter 1

**Last we left Mia she was stuck in captivity-let's find out what's going on.**

My staff bo is gone, Seth nearly beat me to death, I'm trapped against my will, my new friends are lost to me-everything's falling apart. I thought that if I spent the days in here sleeping I would be less worried but my eyes never stay closed for long. Mom would always tell me the same story when I couldn't go to bed. I would always listen because it was the only time that she wouldn't ignore me, one of the few times I felt like her child. _"Ready for the story?"_

_ "Yes Mama!"_

It was a painfully mature story, my mom never liked to sugarcoat things when I was little. Why am I remembering her now, is it because I feel so close to death, so close to my parents? I don't remember them dying, I only remember feeling a little more alone in the world when they were gone.

"Don." It's one of the few words I mutter daily after waking up from my naps. The second probing test was worse than the first one because it really felt intrusive. The Professor assured me that I'm not suffering from any internal bleeding because her scanners would've picked it up. "It's all in your head," she reassured me. But my pelvis still hurts, Seth must have done something to mess me up. Why do I still see him as my best friend who just moved to Moonlight Town? I continue to forgive him and let him walk all over me-my feelings for him are getting me hurt. Yesterday, or earlier today, they let me clean myself up in the bathroom and I saw my reflection for the first time in days. There are half a dozen Band-Aids on my face and a few purple bruises on my arms and face. I held in my sobs in fear the Professor and Don would hear me. Seth did all of this, he had given me all those bruises and cuts and I still call him my friend why?

"Don't bother begging for more food, that's all you're getting," replies Don after I call out to him. His blunt response triggers the story Mom told me so many times. _"__There was a princess named Gissel who lived in a prosperous kingdom filled with apples the color of the sun. She was about to get married to a prince called Jai whom she didn't care much for but was willing to marry him for the sake of the kingdom. But before she got married, she fell in love with a farmer's son. When the guards weren't looking, she would sneak out to secretly rendezvous with him_-Mom had to tell me what that word meant, I would say, rahn-day voh-_and the night before she was to be married, they confessed their love for each other. The farmer's son refused to let her go but for the good of the kingdom, she left the him and married Jai. Less than a year later, the princess and the prince were living happily in the kingdom with the apples of the sun, but one night when the moon was the brightest, the princess was taken from her room. When she woke up, she was in the arms of the farmer's son, who had gone mad with love for her. She begged and begged for him to bring her back to her home but he refused and wanted to keep her with him forever. The guards and Prince Jai __searched for her everywhere_ while Princess Gissel waited for her prince in shining armor to save her…"

It was just a stupid, kid story meant to scare me. But it's starting to look like my life in this prison cell. I lift my head to the dull, metallic wall. "Why are you doing this to me? Did I…do something wrong?" He doesn't answer so I continue to plead. "Please-I have nothing to give to you or the Professor. What's so important about me?" He doesn't reply which I was already used to by the third day, or second, or seventh. I asked him the same question the other day but he just ignored me the way he always does and I'm afraid to ask the Professor. She's been so nice about these tests and making me these grilled cheese sandwiches while Don coldly treats me like gum under his shoes. I thought I would have more sympathy for him after what he told me about his friend but my heart can only be open for so any people. But he's the only one here I can talk to. Maybe I should take another nap.

Mom's voice returns in my sleep, _"Princess Gissel was losing hope every day. She knew that her prince would save her and it was only a matter of time-she grew to despise the farmer's son and his abusive ways-_she stopped to tell me what that word meant also-_and one year later, the guards found the farmer's home where the farmer's son was-"_

Moaning softly, I raise my head from the cold floor. The air conditioners in this huge prison make this place too cold, especially for someone who's lived on an island all her life. Rubbing my bare arms gently, I move on my knees towards the bars where Don's standing with his back towards me.

"Don't try anything," warns Don patronizingly knowing I can't do a thing. I wince as my lower abdomen aches as if someone was throwing rocks at me. Don can easily overpower me even if I did have my bo staff with me. "Don, do you hate me?" as he ignores me, I turn around and lean against the bars so he can't see me grimace at this horrible pain. "What did I do to you for you to hate me this much?"

I hear him shuffle his feet but he doesn't reply, so for some reason, I keep on rambling. Knowing that there's someone here to listen is good enough for me. "You forced me to get 'Chaos Emeralds' when you first met me…and I-I somehow I ended up some in another world and some guy was dying and you were there too, and you kidnapped me-"

"Enough of that," he cuts me off in that sharp tone of his. "It's not a matter of me hating you because I don't. I do what I have to do to get what I want."

"Then what do you want?" there is a heavy silence that lasts a few minutes and then he answers, "don't ask ridiculous questions. You're annoying me." A weird feeling courses through my body from my stomach, a tingling sensation. I turn around to face his back again, standing up on my weak knees as I feel every muscle tightening up. Why do I have empathy for guys who "do what they have to do to get what they want"? It's that softness in my heart that gave me these cuts and bruises, that softness that made me unable to bring Seth and forgive him, that softness that got me in this prison cell. My hands ball up into fists and my face flushes with heat as I speak.

"You-made me feel sorry for you when you don't-d-deserve any of that. You just care about what you want, you don't care about anyone else but yourself! Why do I have to be the victim of your selfishness?" I can't stop myself-for once anger has total control of my words. My frustration booms off the prison walls. "You hurt me, make me feel like I'm dirt, and you treat others the same way. You're no better than Seth." By the time I finish my rant, I'm practically sweating and enveloped in heat. Angrily, I silently wait for him to retort in some demeaning way; my furious breathing and the A/C humming fills the silence.

His slumping head slowly rises and he gets off the bars without letting me see the front of his body. I haven't glared and scowled at someone in so long but isn't someone like me allowed to get really angry at some point in their life? The longer I wait for his nerve-hitting insult to fly out, the quicker my fists start to open. No, stay angry, I deserve to be furious after everything he and Seth have put me through. The door to the laboratory opens and a girl's light tone echoes off the walls.

"Hey buddy, what's up?" the girl asks him casually. "I heard some noise in here, long time no see. I had to leave Graham for a special assignment." At the sound of her voice, he quietly strolls towards the door while ignoring her as he does to me. Don heads out the sliding door without allowing me to see his face. Finally, I see the girl he seems to be friendly towards. "Oh, it's you again from before, Mariah?"

"It's Mia," I snap, much to Topaz's surprise. When I see the shock on her face, I deeply sigh, letting go of all the frustration that wrapped itself around me when I yelled at Don. "I'm so sorry-I'm-"

"What're you doing here behind bars? You do something to piss off Egglady?"

"No but you should ask Don. He won't tell me why, just that the Professor needs to test me."

"Oh boy-I would help but I would have Egglady and Don on my tail and I really don't need that considering the drama I had to deal with before I got here," she says unsympathetically. "Wait a minute-you were the one yelling at Don?"

"Yeah," I admit guiltily.

"That's why he looked like you threw a pile a shit at him. I'm gonna go talk to him," she says urgently, running along silently in her spandex attire. I should've kept my anger locked in, I didn't want to get him upset-now I feel bad but I just couldn't help it. Folding my arms, I slink back to my corner in the dark and get in a somewhat comfortable position for another nap. I'm sure all the frustration will go away after I take another nap.

I wake up, slightly sad that I didn't hear my mom's voice. Oddly enough, Don is missing and it's just me in here. Now I'm really sorry that I said that stuff to him, I didn't want to be left alone. A loud rumbling shakes the level below me, is it an earthquake? I crouch back in my corner, no longer drowsy from the short nap. The lights outside the prison tremble and look just about ready to fall like an apple from a tree. Is the Professor working on something big-no, she works on the highest floor so she wouldn't hear or feel anything downstairs. The humming of the sliding door makes me jolt to my feet, followed by loud footsteps. At the bars is Topaz looking extremely worried. "I need your help."

* * *

She dare compare me to him? I'm no better than Seth, the boy who deserted her and turned her into an empty shell of a person? The one who left her there to die and bruised her everywhere. "I didn't have to do a damn thing!" I snatch up another prototype robotic arm and smash it against the floor. My rings fly off in all kind of directions, smashing more junk robots Professor failed to finish and will never finish. Smoke quickly envelops the room and conceals me with the rest of the robot parts cluttered on the floor.

She compared me to that monster, but isn't that what I am? A fake human being, a test subject that wasn't supposed to be? Why wouldn't Mia hate me, after everything I've done to her? I've practically ruined her life but I did my damn best to make it better with Luke's help. "You must be disappointed in me too, huh Luke, along with Angelica? Both of you resent me, right?" I shout as I send another ring crashing into the wall. "ANSWER ME!" Another ring crashes into the light bulbs over my head, making the room as dark as whatever's inside me-because I'm sure as hell I don't have a soul since I'm no better than Seth.

"Hey Don! Mia here has something she wants to say," yells Topaz coming from the elevator. Both of the girls cough as the smoke moves towards the vents and the elevator door. "Get down." Did I make you hate me too Angelica? Of course you do, I'm the reason you're dead. Please, if you hate me, just send the order to whatever God is up there and make me fall asleep for another couple of years.

"Don, please stop, I'm sorry!" I heavily pant with my fists clenched and my blood boiling. She and Luke both called me selfish, how ironic is that? I extend my arms out in a swift movement and another big ring slams into the wall, leaving a long crack traveling down to the broken robot covered floor. "I was really mad when I said all that stuff, please stop," begs Mia innocently. She meant what she said, there's no mistake about that-it's the only time I've heard her pissed off. Mentally aiming for her, I send my ring towards her direction with my arm extended behind me. Professor told me not to bring harm to her, Luke said for me to protect her, I'm tired of living off everyone's promises. I need to start living for myself from now on. "At least you have friends, Seth doesn't have any! You have your friend-"

She is treating me humanely despite everything the wrong I've done to her, the same way Luke treated me. They both apologize for the terrible things I do to them, why are they like that?

* * *

"Mia just stay down," commands Topaz. The golden ring flies straight for me through the smoke. Topaz jumps in front of me and prepares to latch onto the golden ring. I shield myself by crouching on the floor but Topaz's sigh tells me Don stopped it. I uncover myself and stand behind Topaz who is relaxed now; there's still plenty of smoke around but I can make out his jacket in the midst. His golden rings return to him immediately so I'm sure he's calmed down and stopped screaming about weird things. "Are you done with your tantrum?" she asks patronizingly, putting her hands on her hips. I don't think she needs to have that attitude with someone who just destroyed a room. His overbearing power never ceases to surprise me.

"Get out," says Don bitterly, glowering at me past Topaz. He's drenched in sweat but I can feel his anger through his terrifying red eyes.

"Alright, sheesh. Come on Mia."

"If you let her walk out-"

"I got it, I got it, I'll be on your bad side."

J.G.P.


	2. Chapter 2

That was the first time I ever saw Don get truly mad. He would always carry his irritation expression but he was never that infuriated and it's all because I got mad-more the reason to never do that again. I sigh quietly when I hear the air conditioners shut off all at once and in a few minutes, the cold air begins to dissipate. Don still isn't back from the basement and Topaz put me back in prison without anyone to guard me. I can't shake the guilt off me, when I see him again, I have to apologize. The air conditioners must have turned back on because it's suddenly freezing again. But I don't hear them humming like they usually do; I would sit by the bars where the lights hit the floor but I find the dark has more comfortable corners.

"That's the right idea, remain in the darkness, tsk," a man at the opposite dark corner says. What-where did he come from? Am I dreaming? I quickly get to my feet and rub my prickly arms. "What, who are you?" I ask, profusely rubbing my arms. Wearing a black robe with a dark blue outline, a face that's darker than my old school shoes appears in the corner; hair hidden by a loose hood, he chuckles and takes a step towards me. "Is this-"

"A dream?" he finishes for me. "Not at all, tsk." His colorless eyes observe the environment and then focus on me. "I can see that this is prison, tsk. What was your crime?"

"I don't-know," I answer honestly, seeing my breath. "Why are…you here?" The longer I talk to him, the more familiar he sounds.

"To see you of course, I take it you don't remember me, tsk. A child accused of a crime she's not even aware of? Poor, poor child," he starts walking towards me, his robe whishing side to side. "Would you want to hear a secret?"

"Stay away from me, please." Something about this man makes me terribly afraid. I can't put my thumb on it but I have such a bad feeling about him. I side-step towards the bars with him following me menacingly-his face fixed in a permanent amused expression. "Please."

"The secret is I can free you from this prison," continues the intimidating stranger, picking up the pace. "You don't have to be here anymore, tsk. Do you want that?" I never wanted freedom more than right now, I guess this is how Seth felt when he left me. I'll be away from Don and Professor and I won't have to take another painful, exhausting test ever again or have to deal with Don's anger. Freedom is getting my bo staff from that park and finding Seth again and bringing him back. I reply firmly, "No." I'm now against the bars in the dim-lit light, feeling safer than I did in the darkness. Freedom is something I want to grab with my own hands, not from anyone else's. "Oh? Why is that, tsk?" wonders the stranger, his scary coal eyes burning into me. "Don't you want to leave here, tsk?" He steps into the light, closing in on me. "Let me help you Mia, tsk."

My heart pounds wildly as if it's dying to get out of my body. How does he know my name? Who is this guy? "I can take you to Seth, I'm sure he wants to see you again."

"Seth, you know him?"

"Of course I do. Better than you do-now come along with me, tsk. Why don't you want your freedom Mia? Tsk." My hands grip the bars so hard I'm afraid that I'll break them. The part of the eye's that is white is blue on this man and his eyes are pitch-black; the light illuminates his facial features as he closes in on me. His strange utterance makes my skin crawl. "I haven't seen you so scared in such a long time, tsk."

"Wha-?"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Don's agitated voice makes me turn for a second. I've never felt so relieved. "I see, tsk," mumbles the intimidating man. When I turn to the man, any trace of him is gone. I sink to the floor to catch my breath and stop rubbing my arms when I realize that the room has returned to its room temperature chilliness. "Someone you're plotting to escape with?" I'm so relieved that the stranger is gone that I forgot about Don's tantrum.

"N-no. Please don't let him get me-I'll stay in here quietly as long as he doesn't get me," I plead, much to his surprise. Every part of me wants to stay in the cell as long as it keeps him away. "Who is he to you?" asks Don suspiciously.

"Not my friend. I don't know who he was." I can't shake off this feeling of familiarity though. Did I ever meet him before? No way, I would have remembered-right? Well he's gone now so there's nothing left to do but apologize to Don again, but first I have to calm my nerves. Covering my face, letting out another sigh, I apologize to Don formally about yelling at him.

"You're entitled to your feelings," he replied grumpily. As he gives me his back I catch him frowning, and not that angry frown he always has, the sulky kind.

' ' '

"_When the guards found the farmer's home, they also found Princess Gissel with a knife in her chest. The farmer's son ran off, free of crime but will always live with what he made the princess do. Prince Jai sobbed and cried over his wife's death and found a note she wrote before she died. It read: 'It is impossible to wait for a prince in shining armor to save me, I can only save myself. This is the only way, if any young girls or boys ever read this, please know that you can't rely on anyone to save you but yourself."_

"_Was the prince sad for a really long time?" I asked her._

"_For a month he was really sad but remarried and lived happily with his new princess."_

I wake up from my nap, rubbing my eyes and stretching my arms. It could be nighttime right now but how would I know in this cell? "Don…how did you get to be so strong?" the question makes his shoulders hunch up. "I'm sorry I just…want to know." If I was as strong as he is, I'd be able to get Seth back for sure. He won't answer anyway, he never answers me. "Chaos Emeralds," he replies stolidly.

"Huh?"

"Chaos Emerald energy runs through me. Collecting seven of them makes me even stronger."

"Without them, would you be weak?"

"Like I said, Chaos Emerald energy runs though me, weakness is impossible for me. I was born powerful."

"That sounds nice," I reply longingly, craving the power that he has. "I wanted to know…'cause if I was strong like you, I would beat Seth." Speaking my thoughts aloud keeps my mind off the persistent pain in my pelvis.

"Why are you obsessed with this guy?"

"I'm not-I just-I don't know."

"You're-" The lights shut off, leaving the room in total darkness. Fortunately I can see like a bat in the dark but I'm not sure if Don can. "I'm going to talk to Professor. It could be a blackout from her experiments." The sliding door closes and Don's out of the room. Why do I have such a bad feeling about this, I never had a fear of the dark before. My worst fears are confirmed when an explosion makes the bars of the prison clang and cling against the floor, nearly hitting me as they bounced all around. The figure in the darkness has me trying to squeeze farther into the shallow corner.

* * *

"Professor, there's a blackout downstairs," I say to her as she taps noisily against the larger-than-life keyboard. Without turning, she waves her hand. "No there isn't, an alarm would have gone off and it would have shown on my screen, duh. Is your head with you today?" responds Professor like a parent annoyed with their child.

"How can you see with so much clatter on the screen?" There were numerous files open, one labeled "Mia exam 1" and another named "Mia X-rays". Those are the results from the three tests she took and I'm sure knowing Professor, she'll want to double-check for anything. "I'm trying to decode something important-"

The deafening boom downstairs makes Professor fall from her seat in a daze. On the way down from her fall, her hands slide against the keyboard, bringing up ringing, red error messages galore. I offer to help her up but she declines. "God I'm only thirty-five." Along with the error messages, the floor plan of the fourth floor of where Mia's being held comes up. The message underneath reads: _Damage on fourth floor. _"Shit, go get Mia up here! She's probably tapping into her powers." The Professor told me that once she re-tests Mia, she'll reveal all her plans and discoveries to me. It's a mystery to me as to why she's testing only Mia as opposed to that chatterbox girl and the cursed swordfighter named Risa.

When I take the elevator downstairs, the lights are back on and where the bars used to be is a giant hole. Observing the inside, the tightly-packed bars are on the inside of the prison which means someone on the outside broke in to get Mia unless she pulled the bars from the inside which I highly doubt she'd be able to do. Nonetheless, she's not here and I had better find her before she gets out of here. I walk past the jail cell and turning the corner, I notice that the double emergency doors ever-so-slightly swinging still.

Downstairs I hear some clattering. Only the Professor's trash room would have something to trip over since there's so much robot shit there. Speeding downstairs and opening the fifth level doors, I quickly glance around the brightly-lit room. I step over the broken parts I smashed yesterday, looking for a trace of blue hair. "I know you're hiding down here. I'm going to find you faster than you could run," I warn. Blue hair springs up from behind an abandoned desk covered with uncompleted robots. "Don! Thank goodness!" she exclaims, running towards me while stumbling over the junk. Thank goodness? If she wanted to break out there's no way she would rushing toward me so eagerly. Looking at her Band-Aid-covered face now stained with oil smudges, she looks oddly relieved to see me. "Before you bring me back, you have to believe me, that man from yesterday is back. He broke me out of prison and tried to take me away and I made a break for it down here-I'm not going along with him, I promise you."

"You expect me to believe that?" I respond harshly. Like Luke, she has those pleading, teary eyes that tell me she's not making up this up, I doubt she can hit the bars hard enough to make an explosion anyway. "Stay close to me."

"There!" she points toward the man I saw in her cell yesterday, who suddenly appears at the other end of the room. He looks like a man who's spent too much time in a factory filled with soot; the intruder steps towards us slowly. "Towards the elevator, move," I command and she runs ahead of me quickly while I follow her. Inside the elevator I punch the number eight, which is the biggest floor in this underground lair. We shoot upward as the man in the dark clothes smiles a toothy grin and remains on the bottom floor. Mia sighs while covering her eyes as if she can still see him, I've never seen her so afraid of anything. Maybe it's the promise I made to Luke or my old feelings for Angelica, but I want to keep her away from him to the best of my abilities. When we reach the eighth floor, we step out of the elevator. The Professor's lounge room is too extravagant for a broke, mad scientist but I have the feeling it's going to get messy in here.

"I like this game," his deep, slightly amused, tone causes Mia's relieved face to shift back into fear mode. I push her towards the flat-screen TV and she hides behind it as I face the coal-faced man behind me. "I will hurt you." Without hesitation, I send a fast ring towards him and he fades away into a reddish mist the same way those Heartless from Luke's world would when they were destroyed. "Not enough."

"Mia, towards the back, go!" she gets up from behind the TV and runs for the pool table in the back of the room. She stops when she bypassing the pool table. The man, unscathed from my attack, stands there with his arms outstretched as if wanting to hug her. I watch her pick up the pool stick and throw it at him, it bounces off him as he moves towards her. "Get down!" She obeys and I send the same golden ring flying towards him. As it hits him, he disappears again. "You are strong for your age young man." Mia steps back as if the mist is poisonous and joins my side. "He might meet us in the elevator, take the emergency stairs, follow me." I kick the sliding door open to the kitchen, the biggest part of this lair, and the door flips in the air and crashes against the counter. Running through another opening that leads into the bedroom, ironically the room that matches the amount of money left in her wallet, there's the man again sitting on the bed. Next to the bedframe is another sliding door and I punch it out and lightly push Mia in front of me. The back room is her library filled with books from scientists and a few books that she's written herself. But all that is a blur to me as I run in front of Mia and open the emergency doors behind a huge bookcase. She stops to catch her breath on the railing and then looks worriedly at me.

"I'm so sorry-"

"Back to the fourth floor, move." The dim lights flicker before returning back to normal. What kind of man like that has skin like ebony? Not even an average black person can be that dark, only animals can get that black. What's so important about Mia that he's hounding her? I'll ask her later once we get to the fourth floor and I destroy that man who's obviously related to the Heartless. I lose my footing as if something tripped me and slip down the staircase, rolling down and banging against the wall as Mia helplessly watches. "Don! Are you okay?"

"Fine," I pick myself up easily. "Come on, why're you still standing there?" Her fearful expression gives me a clue. I turn towards the man at the bottom of the next staircase. "You."

"The cat and mouse game was fun, I haven't enjoyed myself in such a while. I'm sure you enjoyed some exercise too Mia, tsk," he says playfully. He's got eyes that remind me of solar eclipses. "The game is over now."

"I don't know why you want this girl so much but I'm going to make sure you don't leave with my prisoner."

"Oh? Brave words for someone who's going to be betrayed in a short while." I immediately turn to Mia but she looks at me with those honest eyes that Luke had. She gasps while staring down at my feet. "No!" cries out Mia. Suddenly something squeeze my neck with hands lacking warmth.

* * *

I watch powerlessly as Don's faceless shadow slams Don against the wall, strangling him while holding him up effortlessly. While Don tries to push himself off the wall, his shadow doesn't move an inch despite how strong Don is. This is crazy, that man made Don's _own shadow_ hurt him. He tries to snatch his shadow's hands and he's successful but as he pulls on them his shadow remains still, its only movement tightening its hold on his neck. "If you want your friend to live you have to come along with me, tsk," says the ebony-colored man.

"Don't," coughs Don as his legs become still as they dangle in the air. I thought Don was the strongest person I knew-seeing him as helpless as I am makes me want to drop on my knees and cry.

"I have to! Ok stop please, I'm coming-" I hurry down the steps while looking back at Don. His shadow releases him and returns to take its place underneath his feet and copies him when Don falls on his behind.

"Good, you have your father's softness."

"My dad-?" The man snatches my face and for a few seconds I lose my breath and his hand drowns me in darkness. Does he know my parents?

J.G.P.

**Wow what a sick dude. The bad sick not the cool sick. Hope you enjoyed this!**


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